Basic Needs Insecurity in Massachusetts Public Colleges and Universities

In fall 2017, researchers from Temple University and the Wisconsin HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a large-scale survey to better understand basic needs insecurity among college students at both community colleges and 4-year colleges and universities.The effort built on a similar survey of 70 community colleges during the 2016–2017 academic year. In total, 33 community colleges and 36 4-year colleges and universities, from twenty states and the District of Columbia, participated in the 2017 survey.

Poverty remains one of the most serious challenges plaguing Philadelphia, an otherwise ambitious and thriving city on an upward trajectory. More than one in four residents live in poverty, the highest rate among the nation’s 10 largest cities. Almost half of those individuals live in deep poverty. And the situation facing our children is even …

The #RealCollege survey is the nation’s largest annual assessment of basic needs security among college students. The survey, which specifically evaluates access to affordable food and housing, began in 2015 under the Wisconsin HOPE Lab. This report describes the results of the #RealCollege survey administered at nearly half of the schools in the California Community …